Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Monday August 13, 2007 @09:27AM
from the start-the-clock-ticking dept.

tetrahedrassface writes "According to CNN current Bush Administration political advisor Karl Rove will be resigning his post as senior political advisor at the end of August to spend more time with his family. Few if any prior senior political advisors to presidents have been the lightning rods for controversy that Mr. Rove has. Accused of running smear campaigns and celebrated for pioneering district level up campaigns that rely heavily on databases and fake grassroots origins, Mr Rove is one of the chief architects of the Republican Revolution."

I'm just looking forward to the next election simply because once Bush is out, I no longer have to hear about people constantly complaining about him. I'm starting not to care who wins, I just don't trust Hillary one bit. I can see it in her eyes and her expressions. I didn't get a good feeling about her even during the 1992 elections.

Same here. I am certain nobody will complain about whoever the next president is. I can not wait for the peace and quiet.

Hey, it could happen. It's just hard to remember, as for the last 16 years we've had no one but Clinton and Bush. I remember the first time I really paid attention to Bush on TV, after he won his first nomination. I remember thinking, "holy cow, the lefties are going to hate this guy every bit as much as we righties hate Clinton." And I was right. But it doesn't have to be that way. Of course it would be with Hillary. With Obama, I think it would just be a general disgust at his incompetence, like with Carter. The key is whether the person will polarize or unite the center. Someone like Fred Thompson, I think would likely win them over, the way Reagan did. If Newt runs, it's hard to say. He eventually lost the center to Clinton as house speaker, but first he masterminded the Contract with America and won Congress for the Republicans by winning them over. But if he had the machinery of a presidential campaign with which to respond and react to the MSM, who knows?

He might be humorously surprised at the assertion that Gingrich "masterminded" a political tactic initially conceived by über-pollster Frank Luntz and the Heritage Foundation.

Or, he might be laughing at the use of the term "mastermind" to describe Newt Gingrich, whose political career displayed a great deal of confusing his own hypocritical moralizing and three-bong-hit ideas about the role of the market with public sentiment.

Wrong again. The House Ethics Committee, both Repubs and Demos with a Repub majority, filed eighty-four ethics charges. Perhaps that may figuratively equal "hundreds," but not literally.

And every one was bogus, but ONE where he accidentally used a certain type of donation for the wrong purpose.

Wrong again, as you would know if you actually read the article I linked which discussed the findings of the ethics committee, instead of disgorging some half-remembered Republican talking point (that I also remember from the relevant period of history.)

Gingrich admitted that he brought discredit to the House and broke its rules by failing to ensure that financing for two projects would not violate federal tax law and by giving the House ethics committee false information.

Far be it from me to hold up the rest of Congress as an ideal of purity, but Gingrich is still a lying hypocrite. And especially so, given his stance as a "reformer."

Hey, it could happen. It's just hard to remember, as for the last 16 years we've had no one but Clinton and Bush. I remember the first time I really paid attention to Bush on TV, after he won his first nomination. I remember thinking, "holy cow, the lefties are going to hate this guy every bit as much as we righties hate Clinton." And I was right. But it doesn't have to be that way.

So far, so good.

Of course it would be with Hillary. With Obama, I think it would just be a general disgust at his incomp

No, a man stands up for what he believes in and keeps his word. I seem to recall the President swears to uphold and defend this little document called the Constitution when he is sworn into office. Bush has taken a paper shredder to it.

To be a man is not to be afraid, to defend the weak and your ideals. Bush is the school bully who uses fear to get what he wants. American's should not be afraid, we should not cower and we should not give up the liberty that MEN like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin risked everything to win for us. Those were men, Bush is a coward and a bully who sells the beliefs and principles we fought so hard to gain for a bit of power.

Have you ever been to a High School that has one of those nosy people that wants to be in every bit of your business and can't stand it when you tell them to go away you want some privacy? Yeah... that is Bush if that same person was also the school bully who made you do what he wanted out of fear and intimidation and then runs to the principle to cry foul if he doesn't get what he wants. The guy who was so macho but under knew he was really weak and pathetic so he would not stand up to anyone unless 20 people where there to back him up against the one. A man stands up for himself no matter what.

Soldiers risk everything to defend what they believe in. The founding fathers of the US of A risked hanging and their homes to create this country and the rights people today so easily let go. Tell me one thing Bush has done that shows he is willing to risk ANYTHING so much as someone disagreeing with him?

A man as you say... would not use fear to control. He would not use fear to get his people to let him spy on them. He would not use fear and threats to intimidate people into doing what he wanted. A man does not do these things. Bush is a coward, a bully and an idiot that has violated his oath to the American people. Colin Powell was a man, and he would not sacrifice his own personal honor to give Bush credibility.

While I agree with you in:How about the one where the government can now IN SECRET, presenting no evidence or holding no hearing or trial as GUARANTEED by the Constitution, seize your assets? How is that "protecting the constitution?

This does seem a rather natural progression given what we've been doing to our rights for A LONG TIME. Ever heard of civil forfeiture? It's been in use for a long time before Bush.

Yeah, I'm still pissed off about that fucker Millard Fillmore! "God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil... and we must endure it and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution," he said. Pansy-assed little bastard!

you vote for someone based on their eyes and expressions?Here in the UK, we had a blind home secretary for a while. his eyes went crazy all the time. I guess he would have lost your vote?I'd be happy never to see a politician, or hear them, so I'm not influenced by such trivialities. What matters is what they propose, what they have done, and what they will do. Looks, Age, voice, style, I couldn't give a damn. the main job of a president or PM is to make the right decisions. You can be a 400 pound ugly son of a bitch who dribbles constantly and sounds like fozzy bear, but if you make the right decisions, I'll vote for you, and I won't care about your race, your gender or your looks.

What matters is what they propose, what they have done, and what they will do. Looks, Age, voice, style, I couldn't give a damn. the main job of a president or PM is to make the right decisions.

True enough, though any president or PM is relying heavily on research and advice from hundreds of other people. A leader needs to sound confident more than feel confident. His decisions are in the background and people feel the tremors of them, but when he or she stands at the podium and tells the people how things are going or why he's doing something, looks, timbre, and eyes do count. (See the Nixon vs Kennedy debate: TV-goers decided Kennedy won. Radio-listeners were for Nixon.)

Now there are lots of people with great ideas, but if you're too short, too heavy, don't look good in a suit...then you're already a step behind. People want heroic stature in their leaders. It's not mandatory and can be gleaned over by intelligence, humor, wise words. But it helps as it has always helped. Barak Obama is a good looking, well spoken guy, and it's not hurting him.

I wouldn't personally worry about Hillary. I don't think that she has a snowballs chance. What with the way that large parts of the country hating her and all.

I for one say good bye and good riddance to Rove. I mean seriously, he has done more to damage this country's political system than just about anybody since the British.

Pushing his radical agenda, which doesn't even reflect genuine conservative values, while making a complete mockery of the entire political process. It genuinely amazes me how so many minority view points have managed to permeate an administration, even after it has lost so much popularity.

The way of campaigning in recent years has been just appalling. The war in Iraq wasn't sufficiently important for congressional attention in '04, but trying to pass a anti-same sex marriage constitutional amendment was worthy of time. I don't get it, why exactly are Republicans so quick to pretend to be conservative? I mean I thought that conservativism had something to do with states rights, keeping the government out of ones business and cutting spending. I haven't seen any progress on any one of those issues in the last 6+ years. Embarrassingly enough, there was more progress on those fronts during the Clinton administration than in GWB's.

And I should probably just mod this down, because this is slashdot, and I'm sure that somebody will do me that favor. I mean, thoughtful posts should never be in the positive, right?

I wouldn't personally worry about Hillary. I don't think that she has a snowballs chance.

Given that futures markets [intrade.com] give her nearly double the chance of the second place candidate (39% vs. 20% for Guiliani), why not bet against her and make some money? Since you obviously know more than those who actually are putting real money, rather than just words, on the line.

Thanks so much for your data driven election analysis! I've never seen such an intereseting cogent explanation of why a candidate is the wrong choice for our great country!

Also, the best reason to wish the end of this Presidency is surely that people will stop complaining about him. It's definitely not that he's actually a bad President or that his administration is incompetent or anything. Have you ever thought of getting a job at CNN or maybe replacing Tim Russert on Meet the Press?

Bush (and some in his administration) has created such a mess that we will be cleaning it up for some time. You will be hearing complaints for a good while after he is gone, I'm sure of it.

Hell, people are still complaining about Clinton's BJ. How long has he been out of office now?

Yeah...

I'm just looking forward to the next election simply because once Bush is out, I no longer have to hear about people constantly complaining about him. I'm starting not to care who wins, I just don't trust Hillary one bit. I can see it in her eyes and her expressions. I didn't get a good feeling about her even during the 1992 elections.

Hillary was the wife of a person that committed adultery. She handled it publicly and was very conservative with how she handled the public. In terms of popularity, she held on to her position as Senator of New York, so that has to account for something. About what her platform is based on, it's been pretty consistent even though I disagree with some of it. How it develops overtime is anyones guess.

I do know that I am ultimately responsible as a citizen of the US to educate myself about whom I would chose to represent us to the world. So instead of writing someone off because you have a superstitious feeling about them, try to make an educated unbiased guess before you concede to a nihilistic haphazard attitude. Stand up for once and stop saying that it doesn't matter. Apathy is the most ridiculous aspect of humanity sometimes. If you don't like someone, there has to be a reason why other than just superstitious intuition.

She handled it publicly and was very conservative with how she handled the public

She blamed "the vast right wing conspiracy" instead of her husband. It was all the fault of those evil republicans since her forever philandering husband would never have an affair in the oval office. Why, way back in 1995, Karl Rove set them up by sending an affluent liberal intern to the White House to tempt Bill so that Bush could steal the election in 2000. Not only that, they drugged Bill Clinton and while he was out, had a very good impersonator do an interview as him where he slammed his fist on the

I'm not an American and therefore can't vote, but my personal opinion (and it's not the evil, liberal foreigner crap) is that, of all of the current crowd of goons running for president, Hillary Clinton would be, by far, the best, and very possibly one of the best presidents you've ever had.

Of all of the current candidates, left and right, she is the only one who has consistently, from what I can tell, maintained her positions, even if they weren't always popular. For instance when she was discussing lobbyists with bloggers at the DailyKos, she didn't pander to the popular opinion then. She has, I think, a fairly clear idea of what she wants and what her platform is. She isn't naive (Obama's bullshit about Pakistan was enough to disqualify him), and she has, by virtue of her years with Bill and a state senator, a decent amount of experience. She doesn't have wacky shit like Romney or Giulliani, and she isn't scared of dissenting opinion, which, given the facsist crap that is happening in yuor country, should be a breath of fresh air for everyone.

In fact the only thing that really is not in her favour is that there are one fuck of a lot of Americans that are somehow terrified of women, who spend a whole bunch of energy making hysterical, wildly paranoid prophecies about how bad she would be. I find it difficult to believe that anything could be worse than the incompetent evil clowns in power right now, but there you have it.

The Dems were also trying to distance themselves from the Clintons at the end of Bill's terms in office.

Which was, in retrospect, an incredibly dumb thing to do. The Clinton Administration was marked by a general trend of peace and prosperity, and while Bill Clinton's personal exploits were shameful, his job approval rating remained quite high. If Gore had campaigned on a platform of "keep doing what my predecessor did, except I'm faithful to my wife", he very well could have had an undisputable win in 2000.

I just hope that some people finally put their vote where their mouth is a vote third parties.

I hope that some third-party candidates appear on the scene that actually have the qualifications needed to serve in office. I don't care how long you've been publishing your pamphlet or running your oil fields, if you haven't already been elected to city, county, state or federal government, I don't trust you to lead my nation.

The political machine will chew you up if you don't have experience operating it.

Personally, I'd argue that having served as an elected official is pretty much a black mark on someone's resume - especially if they ran for multiple terms. I believe Socrates and Adams when they say that good people just have no interest in politics.

I don't care if you know how to operate the political machine. All that means is that you know who to call to get money for your campaigns. Which is why Hillary and Rudy are both out for me.

If Gore had campaigned on a platform of "keep doing what my predecessor did, except I'm faithful to my wife", he very well could have had an undisputable win in 2000.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Going by Clinton's approval ratings is misleading. Even against a lackluster candidate like Dole, Clinton was only able to muster 49.2% of the vote during his relection campaign in 1996, despite having around 60% approval ratings at the time. In other words, that high approval rating didn't translate very well into votes at election time.
Also...Gore manifestly had a lot of problems:
1) He wasn't Clinton.
2) He didn't have ANY of Clinton's charm or charisma. Where Clinton came across as your buddy, Gore came across as the condescending guy no one likes.
3) From 1992-2000, Gore veered to the left. Politically, he went from being a fairly conservative blue dog Democrat as a Tennessee Senator to being a left-wing idealogue VP. This happened at the same time that the country, as a whole, was trending more conservative. To give you an idea of the impact, Gore lost his home state of Tennessee to Bush in 2000. Forget about Florida, if Gore had simply won Tennessee, he would be President today.

The fact that Gore lost after a successful illustrates his overall weakness as a candidate. Good candidates win elections, bad candidates do not. A fairly simple formula that people, especially party operatives, seem to forget. The Democrats electoral success in 2006 hinged in no small part to them putting forth better candidates than the Republicans (who, in many cases, actually ran to the right of Republicans on certain issues like immigration).

As an aside, the problem with Hillary is...she's not a good candidate. Not because she isn't effective at politics...she is. She is immensely talented, ruthless, and goal oriented. She has a great fund raising machine, and a lot of people owe her favors. The problem is a little over half the voting population won't vote for her under any circumstance. She's extremely polarizing. As popular as Bill was across demographics and party lines, Hillary has never had cross over appeal. Feminists love her, west coast and east cost liberals love her. And that's it. And you can't win an election on that alone.

And yours is typical of what I regularly bemoan on/. - people linking in "support" of their argument without reading the entirety of the linked materials. I would say the article's citation link pointing out Mr. Paul's failure to apologize for these statements, as well as his attempt to dismiss these racist remarks as "within the context of current events and statistical reports of the time," doesn't exactly make your case.

Everytime I hear her speak it sounds so condescending. And that speech she gave about 2 years ago about "We're going to have to take some things away from you for the common good" smacked of communism.

that speech she gave about 2 years ago about "We're going to have to take some things away from you for the common good" smacked of communism.

Seeing as she was addressing a group of hundreds of wealthy supporters, and referring specifically to the Bush tax cuts, I don't see your point. Unless you consider progressive taxation to be "communism", in which case, I hear the Birchers [jbs.org] are always looking for members.

In Washington's more 'discreet' gay bars Karl Rove is well-known as a frequent visitor. Witty gays have given him the nickname 'Miss Piggy, after the character on 'The Muppets'. Whether this refers to his appearance ['the doughbo

Uh, no, once Bush won reelection the ship "Bush II" was home free. Perhaps you heard about an upcoming election season? Rove is a political consultant specializing in getting Republicans elected and advancing conservative initiatives. It is simply time from Karl to get involved in the elections and he can't do that from the White House anymore.

short term deficits are not that big an issue. However, we've run a deficit for the vast majority of my lifetime. The magic thing is that deficits accumulate into debt. Add the extra magic of compounding interest and you're in for a real treat. The debt is my primary concern.

Well, first, I don't know where you got the idea that the interest on our debt is compounding. It is straight simple interest. Somebody buys a new security from the treasury, and the government pays him fixed interest payments every s

And how's this ship burning? It doesn't appear anyone is going to be indicted for any more crimes. Impeachment proceedings haven't begun. And it's their second term so no worries over re-election. Bush doesn't care about his lack of popularity as he's already accomplished most of his goals.

Huh? What are you talking about? I think he meant lining his and his buddies pockets and...

Ohhh. The official goals. I see, you didn't get the memo. Wait. Are you on the memo list anyhow? How did you get in here? Guys? Find that person's IP address and bring him to my office! He hacked me and gained confidential information!

Congress still has the power to reign a president in, as Clinton constantly discovered. The problem has been that Congress somewhere along the way lost the balls to stand up to executive stupidity and say "No!" There was a day and an age when Congress had no problem whatsoever making a President's life grief. Heck, Woodrow Wilson was forced to go to his allies and tell them that there was no way in hell that the United States would join the League of Nations.The problem is that in this age of big money,

Colin Powell resigned as Secretary of State in 2004, and was the first high ranking Republican official to go on to testify on record about all the many mistakes were made leading up to the war, including the lies that were included in his speeches leading up to the invasion.

I'm not aligned either way, but in my opinion he's the *only* Republican that has an ounce of credibility left.

That's a good point, but I think his performance in the run-up to the war proved to me that he made the right decision when he said he wouldn't get into politics.

At the time, everyone pretty much knew that Powell didn't agree with the way the war was going to be executed. After all, the "Powell Doctrine" of always going in with overwhelming force was named after him, and the Bush administration (thanks mainly to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) were convinced they could get it done with a much smaller force. Not to mention that he was perfectly willing to go up in front of the UN and present intelligence that he (allegedly) knew to be faulty when he made the speech. The fact that he said he regretted it later doesn't change the fact that he was willing to tow the party line in the face of his own (alleged) doubts.

The thing that makes him ill suited for high office, though, is not that he was right about these things, it's that he was totally ineffective at convincing the people that mattered to do things his way. What good is someone who has all the right answers if he is incapable of exercising any influence over anyone? Powell was Secretary of State, one of the most powerful cabinet positions in terms of foreign policy, and he was unable to convince anyone in the administration that his viewpoint was the correct one.

Yes, the President and his advisors are notoriously hard headed, but if you can't at least reach some sort of compromise with hard headed people, how can you manage foreign affairs, a game that involves talking to heads of state that are pretty much all egotistical and hard headed by nature? We don't need, and we frankly can't afford, another President whose only influence over foreign heads of state derives from his willingness to conduct preemptive strikes.

Despite his charisma and intelligence, which should make him a natural leader, he's also a soldier. As such, he's been trained to obey his superiors even when he personally disagreed with the decisions. This made him ineffective "incapable of exercising any influence" as Secretary of State, because his role was as foot soldier for an administration that had no use for tact or strategy.This administration has shown from the beginning that they're not willing to compromise or negotiate with anyone. As you

Which goals are those? If he was thinking of making vast amounts of money for his cronies from the invasion of Iraq, the Insurgency has taken care of that. His education program is a disaster. Congress wouldn't co-operate on his immigration reforms. His social security reforms have evaporated. His good pal Michael Brown made sure that FEMA was an absolute joke during Katrina, which pretty much revealed to the world (including all those enemies slinking around in nasty places waiting to blow Americans up) that the richest nation on the planet was intensely incompetent. The ball has totally been dropped on catching bin Laden and the NATO coalition is now finding itself battling a recharged Taliban. The White House's most important Central Asian ally, Pakistan, looks more and more to be sliding towards some sort of pro-Islamist regime.

I dunno. It doesn't look to me like Bush has accomplished any goals, unless his goals were the humiliation of the US on the international stage.

(I would lay the blame for 9-11 on him as well, but to be honest, his part in that was rather small. The blame for the attacks sits more on Bill Clinton's shoulders. So take that, you Dwemocwats).

The loss of intelligence in the Islamic world happened under Clinton's watch. It was the failure to realign to the new threat after the end of the Cold War that forces one to consider the failings of the Clinton administration. Don't worry, Bush gets his share of the blame for the lack of comprehension of intelligence immediately prior to 9-11, but this was a systemic failure that had taken hold of the intelligence community for a decade.

> The loss of intelligence in the Islamic world happened under Clinton's watch.

And yet, even with all that lost intelligence, even with all the horrible, horrible things Clinton supposedly did to our intelligence and national security apparatus... it was still able to provide written warning of pretty much exactly what was going to happen and put it in Bush's hands on August 6th.

And yet, even with all that lost intelligence, even with all the horrible, horrible things Clinton supposedly did to our intelligence and national security apparatus... it was still able to provide written warning of pretty much exactly what was going to happen and put it in Bush's hands on August 6th.

Written warning ? The fools ! They should had read it aloud !

Seriously speaking, maybe the intelligence organizations need to take heed of schoolteachers; the person the report is delivered to must submit in return, in a given timeframe, a summary of the reports contents (to prove he has read it) and a summary of actions he has taken concerning it, as well as the reasons he considers said actions adequate. Failure to do so satisfactorily will result in being placed in detention in a secret CIA torture facility.

Actually in what is obviously a hideous mockery of what was going to happen, they did try to read it aloud to the President but he decided it wasn't important enough to listen to the briefing on it before his vacation. After all, who would have thought a National Secuirty briefing on an imminent threat would be need urgent attention. Certainly not Bush.

He operates under beliefs, not by raising his finger in the
air and seeing which way the wind is blowing

The direction of the wind at least has some basis in fact, in that
it means doing what the populace wants them to do. Granted, most people
couldn't find their way out of a paper sack with a map and a flashlight,
but I'll take playing to the polls over playing god any day.

What's going to happen when we beat the terrorists in Iraq?

I dunno... We'll all have to duck the flying pigs? Bush can look
forward to building snowmen in the afterlife? Goatse-man will
experience the least pain of all of us when monkeys start flying out?

Or, if we actually can claim such a victory, we can polish the
crater and use the newly-vitreous ex-middle-east as the largest objective
lens on the planet for a new telescope? Hrmph, and to think some
people have the audacity to claim Bush doesn't support science!

I would go so far as to say Bush's low popularity numbers reflect on how much conviction he has. He operates under beliefs, not by raising his finger in the air and seeing which way the wind is blowing (IE Dems on Iraq).

Sticking to one's "convictions" when reality has proven them wrong is not an admirable trait. When you find you are digging yourself into a hole, you stop digging, not "stay the course" and dig faster.

What's going to happen when we beat the terrorists in Iraq? What are the cowering, wimpering, cut and run democrats going to do then?

If they have any sense they'll cut our losses and write off Iraq. The American people, unfortunately, probably don't have the patience for the time and effort it would take to clean up the huge mess Bush has made.

And hopefully after a few years of no major terrorist activity the cowardly conservatives crying like children about monsters under their beds will grow up and grow some balls.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank the slashdot community, in advance, for what I am certain will be yet another discussion that will be the picture of decorum and civility. If there is anything I have learned about slashdot over the years, it is its ability to conduct a mature discussion about any topic, devoid of paranoia, rage, or ignorance.

In fact, I believe it would be fair to say that it was slashdot that single-handedly relegated the old connotation of "tinfoil hat" to the dustbin, leaving instead something that could only be termed fashionable, if unique, headwear in its wake. I know of no other web site that could have accomplished this return to such a balance and due consideration of all sides of an issue in its discourse.

Only on slashdot can such a discussion be guaranteed to be free of cynicism that dominates other venues of debate. Here, opposing viewpoints will be examined and considered, and not snuffed out. Nor will the community elevate viewpoints which only serve to reinforce their preconceived notions; indeed, slashdot, especially its comments, is the place to come for an evenly weighted consideration of any issue, especially issues of a political nature.

Neither will commenters fall to the common fallacy of "recentism", believing that a recent event must necessarily be the worst such case of an event in the history of mankind; instead recognizing that the internet can simply deluge us with an increasingly unprecedented level of information about any person or group which may pique our interest, allowing a wide range of ever more specific issues and minutia to be amplified to levels never witnessed in the past.

Moreover, I can tell by the (current) article title - "Politics: Carl Rove Resigning Aug 31" - that this discussion will have the highest regard for accuracy not only in content, but in spelling and grammar, as regular slashdot visitors will no doubt recognize to be the status quo. This level of accuracy can only be achieved by the tireless work of slashdot's editors, who carefully review each submission to the site.

So, bravo, slashdot - not only for what you have accomplished for political discussion in the past, but for the discussion you are about to have. It is exactly this kind of level-headed discussion that keeps people coming back for evenly balanced news and careful interpretation on nearly any topic.

jeez dude, way to intimidate people. who's going to feel up to your sarcasm after that?
(this is nice: Neither will commenters fall to the common fallacy of "recentism", believing that a recent event must necessarily be the worst such case of an event in the history of mankind; instead recognizing that the internet can simply deluge us with an increasingly unprecedented level of information about any person or group which may pique our interest, allowing a wide range of ever more specific issues and minuti

I just wanted to take a moment to thank the slashdot community, in advance, for what I am certain will be yet another discussion that will be the picture of decorum and civility. If there is anything I have learned about slashdot over the years, it is its ability to conduct a mature discussion about any topic, devoid of paranoia, rage, or ignorance.

You are absolutely right, and I think that Slashdot is an example of civility that should be taken as a model by LittleGreenFootball, the DailyKos, Alternet and

Ironically, in the middle of your effort to point out what's wrong with political discussion in the USA, you're encouraging one of the more insidious flaws in mainstream media coverage: the idea that "due consideration" will always be "evenly balanced". Sometimes the right way to "Teach the Controversy" is just to point out the objective facts which make the fringe side of the controversy look stupid, not to fill 50% of your story with flat-earther quotes and title the whole thing "Shape of Earth: Views Differ".

Most online discussion is even worse, since people have ten thousand popular blogs to choose from and so naturally gravitate to the ones that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs - so instead of reading stories that don't challenge our objectively questionable views, we get to read stories that don't challenge any of our views. By this standard, Slashdot's political discussions are actually pretty good - the tech crowd skews more libertarian than average, but because Slashdot is not inherently a political site there's still enough liberals and conservatives and socialists and such in the crowd to make things interesting, most of whom aren't just trolls. The nested comments are lightyears ahead of most sites for encouraging constructive debate, and if you set your threshold to 4 or lower you'll even get to read the most well-written anti-groupthink side of that debate.

I'm not talking about information that is provably incorrect, like whether the Earth is flat. I'm talking about philosophical and ideological differences on whether, e.g., promoting the development of democracies in the Mideast - for myriad reasons - is or isn't a good idea, and what the arguments are for each.

Some editorial discussion is also an issue of severely misplaced priorities. A greater disservice is done to the population being served by a particular media outlet when they disproportionately represent threats from, e.g., our own government, versus radical Panislamic terrorists or longer term from China.

There are many supposedly intelligent and well-educated individuals who literally and fervently believe that the Bush administration is the single greatest threat to the American people that has existed in the history of the nation, and any other current or historical external threat is either manufactured or pales in comparison to the present "internal" threat. Further, any media outlet that does not represent the situation in this fashion is therefore not reporting the "truth".

Then again, a disappointingly - and increasingly - large number of these people also genuinely believe that 9/11 was executed (or at the very least "allowed to happen") by the United States government as an excuse to warmonger in the Mideast, so I suppose I should not find this surprising. I do, however, find it extremely disheartening.

It's almost not so much what the media is reporting; it seems a great deal of people have already chosen their ideological "side", as it were, in many of these debates, and will simply seek out "news" that supports their point of view, and discount any other source that doesn't.

Well, the American Civil War leaps to mind as a greater threat to the health of this nation.The War of 1812 also suggests itself as a possibility.

Let's not forget Prohibition, which - it could be argued - led to the rise of organized crime, an immense expansion of federal law enforcement power (which we're seeing the fallout of currently), and even (arguably, but at a bit more of a stretch) the War on Drugs.

And, speaking of the War on Drugs, which predates the Bush administration by quite a bit, I'd think i

This is a man who had a well-known dream of creating a permanent Republican electoral majority and who really perfected the use of wedge issues to obtain and hold power.

The contention that we should be respectful towards him is absurd. He spent decades working as hard as he could to ensure that everyone's interests were not represented equally or fairly, and helping to destroy the middle ground, to make the "us versus them" vision of politics more deeply entrenched.

Sure, there have been power plays for a long time; Machiavelli wasn't born yesterday, nor was he the originator of all his described tactics. But that said, the fact that something is old does not make it desirable or excusable.

As such, I say "FUCK YOU" to Mr. Rove, and I sincerely hope that one of those dove's that he's planning on killing drops a turd right in his eye.

And a "FUCK YOU" to you too, you righteous asshole. This is a man who perfected the modern use of hate as a political lever. He shall reap what he was sown.

When you make a statement, you imply the inverse. When you say that Karl Rove, in his evil ways, wanted to create a permanent Republican majority, you're implying that there is no idea in liberal minds of creating a permanent Democrat majority.I don't think that's really true, so it's a bit hypocritical for you to criticize Rove for doing well what Democrats would love to do. Remember, Rove is where he was because of the outcome of an election. I don't really understand what your crying about interests not

One more note: I really wish that politicians of all sorts would stop using moral equivalence to justify their actions.

It's sickening how often I see somebody justifying bad actions by saying that the other side has done the same thing, or as is the case in your post, that the other side might want to do the same thing.

This moral equivalence argument has become so common that you even followed it up by calling me a hypocrite for not granting the argument against a pure hypothetical.

Two wrongs don't make a right. They never will.

Again, this is not a party-specific complaint, but the fact that you would make these comments, seemingly sincerely, goes a long way to showing how many people view democracy as nothing more than an "us versus them" game in which one side wins and the other must lose.

This is a man who had a well-known dream of creating a permanent Republican electoral majority and who really perfected the use of wedge issues to obtain and hold power.

I'm sure there are plenty of people on the Democratic side that dream of cementing a permanent Democratic electoral majority too. Neither objective is evil, unless of course, you consider the Democratic or Republican party as innately evil. And if you do, honestly, you have no business discussing politics.

I don't like Rove (mainly because he's been disasterous for conservatives), but Rove was hardly some grand architect of "us versus them".

Sure, he wasn't. He only pitted the entire country against each other on the issues of terrorism, same-sex rights, Iraq, immigration, abortion... every even election year, the Republicans trotted out another dead horse to beat righteously in a desperate attempt to attract blacks, fundamentalist Christians, anyone they could, to the Republican party.

It is news for nerds, when the top advisor of an administration who has supported topics like changing the fight on global warming, letting the FCC let lobbyists write its daily agendas, encouraging telcos to say that the internet is "theirs" and that they can charge a premium to different internet sites around the globe if they want 'increased' bandwith.

It is news for nerds, when an administration is guilty of supporting failing industries like airlines, stopping the path for new airlines to make headway into the arena. It is news for nerds when we remove the advisor who played the "Wizard of Oz" with what should be the most powerful man in the world.

In reality though, it won't change a thing. Rove's departure is too little, too late. My hope is that charges are brought upon him for the firing of the US Attorneys and making it politically motivated, for helping cherry pick intelligence to make a case for a war of choice, for re-writing documents written by climatologists to show that global warming is a hoax, and on and on. The intelligent folks would start the indictment towards the end of Bush's term, and have it run through after he is out of office. No sentence should be passed while George Bush is in office. This way, when faced with SOLID jail time, Karl Rove will show how his underhanded life will play against George Bush and Co when he starts blathering about every bad thing he and his buddies in the White House did during his tenure. And you can bet that it would happen if he did face jail time.

For an administration so bent on war, almost all of them deferred multiple times to stay out of Vietnam, or flew aircraft that were obsolete and had no chance of being used in battle. When they are faced with the violent fact of jail -- you can bet they will try to "defer" yet again.

It is really stretching to say that this is news for nerds. Plenty of political news happens every day from both sides, yet the only ones that seem to matter to slashdot is when it only concerns Republicans?

This politics section is a joke. This is not news for nerds. This is raw meat for the digg/kos crowd. Remember when CmdrTaco said they would be fair? It's not even close. Trolls like kdawon and Zonk use this section as their personal soapbox. It's ridiculous when anyone says it's anything but.

The intelligent folks would start the indictment towards the end of Bush's term, and have it run through after he is out of office. No sentence should be passed while George Bush is in office. This way, when faced with SOLID jail time, Karl Rove will show how his underhanded life will play against George Bush and Co when he starts blathering about every bad thing he and his buddies in the White House did during his tenure. And you can bet that it would happen if he did face jail time.

Politicians in both parties are ruining this country because people have divorced themselves from the political process. Politicians will continue to take your money and spend it as they see fit, get us into wars, and commit attrocities in your name whether you're involved in the process or not.

Voting is not just a right: It's a responsiblity. Being informed about the issues allows you to take that responsiblity seriously.

But, as someone else stated once, Slashdot is the place where I come for tech related news, if I wanted politics news I would go to BBC/politics, if I wanted entertainment news I would go to eonline or yahoo enterntainment...

If you truly can't handle political stories on/., adjusting your personal preferences is a much quicker way to solve that problem than wading into the discussion for the sole purpose of expressing your disinterest.

I see what you did there. Hidden out in the open like one of the three...

On a side note, I couldn't believe that the OP had to mention that you needed to have read the books to get the Scouring of the Shire refernce. I mean, this is/.! But of course someone came along and not only hadn't read the books, but then went on to argue with them... Which I guess means that this really is/.

I'm not sure if I should rejoice or freak out. I'm glad to see him out of there, as I'd like to see the whole administration gone. But at the same time, while I'm not a mega-tinfoil-hat kind of guy, I do wonder if he's leaving because he's now completed whatever he wanted to do there, and how afraid should I be of whatever that might be.

Yes, he's leaving the White House, but that in no way means he's done working *with* the White House and the Republican Party. All it really means is that he'll be free of the restrictions on doing political work out of a government office.

Then again, if or when it hits the fan, any work he may have done after that date would not have the protection of his White house job or "Executive Privilege".

Bush awards him a "Presidential medal of Freedom" or some other insanely high accolade that he is undeserving of as a final parting shot before he leaves in 2009? I mean come on, if Brownie is doing a "heck of job", just imagine what Bush must think of Turd Blossom.

One of the best political campaign advisers in the history of politics, has been released into the wild to prepare for next year's elections. In other words, this story has implications for both sides of the political aisle and it's not simply a 'ding dong witch is dead' deal.

The thing that stunned me about the whole "swiftboating" of John Kerry was that allegations were made, did their damage, and there was never any apparent followup. Well, the key word in that sentence was "apparent." Google was my friend on this matter, though it was some 6 months ago, so my memories may not be precise, at least I can't remember which news agency. Reporters went to to Viet Nam, to the vicinity of the battle cited for Kerry's Silver Star, to interview the locals. The locals did not rememb

And I wonder, can he be beaten? Is America going to have another Republican president?

I'd say the Democrats are likely to win, because the Republican Party has been using too many "by any means necessary" political strategies that helped them in the short run, at the cost of completely ruining their credibility in the long term. Maybe by 2012 the American people will have forgotten enough of the crap they've suffered through over the last few years, but I seriously doubt they will have by next year. Peopl

To start - I'm a libertarian, I'm very opposed to the current administrations handiling of a number of items, not the least of which is the impinging of my right to privacy, the handling of the "War on Terror", and getting us into a war in Iraq that I still fail to see how it benefits the US citizen. I have taken a bit of criticism from my friends by asking that question, but my response is and has been "When you spend US solders lives and Billions of US dollars, it seems to me that there should be an answer to the 'What did we purchase?' question."

That said, Karl Rove's handling of the 2000 presidential election was excellent, but the 2004 presidential election was masterful. Granted, the democrats helped some (and appear to be helping again now, for that matter), but there is no way Bush would have been re-elected without his help. In any normal situation the incompetency of any of those three items would have cost Bush the 2004 elections. I'm kind of sorry to see him go, regardless of my opinion of the administrations polices, Karl Rove is a master of politics and for good or for badad, I think he should have stuck around to see it though, there is only another 18 months in the administration, after all, and I'm sure he's on the short list of blanket pardons that Bush is going to write as he exits his term in office.

Besides that, who is left for the media to target? Dick? He is already a target, and doesn't care. He has so much "clout" in Washington that he can, and does, ignore everyone and do his own thing.

Rove successfully manipulated public opinion, yes, but he did so with innuendo, lies, and manipulation.

As if the other side never does that? Please.

As a retired Captain (USAF), I took great offense at Al Gore's election-2000 team explicitly trying to get them to throw out the absentee votes of GIs stationed overseas. What was the usual reason? No postal cancellation. Much mail sent by those on ships doesn't get cancelled. There was one especially grevious case--a guy serving on one of the ships helping

1.) K, it's not exactly tech news, but I still think it's very relevant to us news-reading nerds. Love or hate, discussions about this administration fueled a great deal of the web 2.0/blog explosion. Granted, that would've happened regardless of who was in the white house, but U.S. politics has had its nose in lots of issues directly related to technology. It's also correctly filed under "politics" so I don't have a problem with it.

2.) Love him or hate him, Rove is a brilliant and cunning political strategist. His president cannot be re-elected and is effectively a lame duck. Bush will wane in the public mind, take lots of vacations, and shoo away congressional investigations like irritating flies for his remaining term--he really doesn't need Rove anymore and would prefer he go off and do what he's proven himself so good at--campaigning for the Republican party in what will doubtlessly be a very difficult upcoming election. I doubt Rove will jump in head first as an official political advisor to anyone anytime soon, but I also doubt he'll be able to resist helping out in an unofficial capacity--it's what he does best.

3.) The "Miss Piggy / Gay bar" bit is just silly. Even if he was gay (which I doubt) he's far too clever to fall into a trap remotely like that. Let me know when there's a vaguely credible source for that goofy rumor and maybe I'll bother to give it more thought.

Don't you mean he's one of the people responsible for ending it? As far as I can see, the Republicans have been winning less and less over the last 8 years, to the point where most pundits believe the Dems will win the presidency and both houses of Congress in '08. The only people happy about Rove's departure should be Republicans.

On the other hand, since so many Democrats think he's some sort of genius... what does that say?